This post begins our new series on religion and science. Since things are so hectic for me right now, and many of the posts in this series are likely to require some thought and research, the posts may come slowly and sporadically. There is a lot of potential ground we can cover, but I think that our central focus will be on trying to understand the relationship between science and Genesis. This is an issue that I have personally spent a lot of time thinking about. In this first post, I hope to accomplish two things: 1) tell the story of my personal journey with this issue, and 2) provide a survey of the various Christian views on the subject. The latter happens fairly naturally with the first since at one point or another I have subscribed to all of the various views that I would consider to be validly Christian.

For me the journey began in the 7th grade, the one year that I attended Shiloh Christian school. My life science class was taught by “Mr. Mac,” who was a young earth creationist. While most of the course covered typical biology curricula we had a special unit on creation/evolution. At the end of this unit we all had to write a short paper supporting one view or the other. Thus began my stint as a young earth creationist. I became pretty fired up about the topic and convinced my parents to order a bunch of videos from the Institute for Creation Research. The young earth creationist view hinges on a specific interpretation of the Old Testament where the creation story in Genesis is seen as taking place over 7 days and the genealogy of the Old Testament is used to calculate the total age of creation. Typically our current landscape is seen as having formed during the flood described in Genesis.

The next significant point in my journey was when I attended Probe Ministries’Mind Games conference. This was an excellent, intense, week-long stint of apologetics presentations and discussion. Probe (perhaps for political reasons) kept an agnostic view about the young/old earth debate. They presented both views and discussed a bit about the advantages and disadvantages of each. During this conference I more or less adopted their open “agnostic” view, though at heart I was still a young-earther.

College marked the next important stage. While in college I took the time to read up on some of the old earth creationist material, specifically astronomer Hugh Ross (books of his worth reading include Creator and the Cosmos and The Genesis Question). Also, I learned quite a bit about cosmology and our current picture of the history of the Universe. Two things became obvious to me: 1) there were respectable Christians who believed in an old earth, and 2) the young earth view really was not an equally valid scientific view. I found myself faced with the following conundrum. Everything within science pointed toward an old Universe and an old earth. In fact, as we look out into space we are looking back in time (because it takes a while for light to travel from distant stars) we can see events occurring billions of years ago. The Christian who believes that the Universe is only ~10,000 years old is really forced into believing that all of these apparent events, and all of the evidence for age, are merely an elaborate make-believe story that God has implanted within reality. To me this is theologically unsatisfactory. It makes God into a deceiver. Thus it was the theological implications of the scientific evidence that led me to abandon young earth creationism.

At that point in time, the view I found most attractive was that of the
old earth creationists. Essentially, this camp hangs on to a literal interpretation of Genesis while trying to understand how it matches what science tells us about our origins. Typically this is done by saying that each day in Genesis is an long period of time in the real Universe. In fact the ancient Hebrew word for day is the same as the word for a long period of time. The old earth creationist claims scientific accuracy for Genesis. In fact, Hugh Ross’s own journey is interesting. As an agnostic astronomer, he set out to read all of the world’s religious texts in order to justifiably be able to reject them. He saved the Bible for last. Upon reading the Genesis account he was amazed by how well it matched the current scientific picture. This in fact ultimately led to his conversion. Perhaps the best exposé on the old earth view is the above-mentioned The Genesis Question. Members of this camp were many of the initiators of the Intelligent Design movement.

The final defensible Christian view on origins is that of evolutionary creationism (also called theistic evolution). The advocates of this view are many, particularly within the community of Christian scientists and intellectuals. This is the camp that I currently most closely identify with. There is an excellent (if dry) lecture on the creation evolution debate by a proponent of this view (Denis Lamoureux) available here. He also has a nice summary handout that includes a useful chart that explains the views of various camps. Watching this lecture will take a good chunk of time (1 hour 20 min), but I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the issue as it is a great overview and helps to put the whole debate within its historical and theological context. The central difference between evolutionary creationism and the other Christian views is in its approach toward interpreting Genesis. This view claims that Genesis was never intended to be read as a scientific account, but rather as a theological treatise on God’s relation to man and the rest of creation, and man’s relation to man and the rest of creation. In any case, it seems difficult to argue that this isn’t the the most important purpose of Genesis. The view also accepts an evolutionary origin for man (which has a great deal of scientific evidence). This view is attractive to me for several reasons. First, I don’t see any convincing theological or spiritual reasons why we need to treat Genesis as a scientific treatise. This view is epistemologically quite a bit more solid, as it does not rely on shifting, falsifiable scientific theories in order to prop up one’s faith. Secondly, the view allows us to accept the current scientific picture without removing any the important theological pillars of our faith.

In general, since science is always changing, I think it is dangerous to connect too much of your faith with a particular scientific view of the world. Some change in scientific theory should not result in a crisis of faith. Examples of problems with this abound in the church’s history. Remember that Galileo was excommunicated for saying the the earth wasn’t the center of the solar system. I personally have felt the effects of this within my own journey. My faith bears the scars inflicted as the result of misplaced confidence in particular scientific views on our origin. Instead of tying our faith to a particular scientific theory, and incorporating an adversarial view toward advances in science, we should think of science as another way to learn about God’s creation. In order to do this we must understand what parts of the Bible are intended to be taken scientifically and historically and what parts are not.

I don’t consider this post to be a sufficient argument for any one view, but rather it gives you an idea of the lay of the land, and provides you with a disclosure about my views on the subject. Over the course of this series James and I will delve into the nitty-gritty. We’ll delve into the scripture interpretation. We’ll delve into the science. We’ll delve into the theology. I hope that the result will be to help the reader grow in both faith and knowledge about God’s creation.

Post navigation

15 Responses to A Creation Story

I am greatly looking forward to riding on the waves of another’s research, that’s for sure. I also really appreciate that you point out that:
“Instead of tying our faith to a particular scientific theory, and incorporating an adversarial view toward advances in science, we should think of science as another way to learn about God’s creation.”
For me, seeing science as another way to learn about God’s magnificent creation is what initially drew me to the subject and I think it is going to always be important for me to remember that. It’s more of an investigating than a trying of my faith based on scientific evidence. I hope to learn much more on this topic and I really liked your opening statement by Sir Francis Bacon. It was, to me, a great inspiration to delve into this discussion once again but with a renewed perspective and different motives than I have in the past.

I need to do some more reading and will get back to you on the details, but in the past few years I’ve read, thought and prayed about the subject. I’ve come to these three conclusions:

First-the Earth is old and the universe is really old. Not 6,000 years old. It’s not just evolutionary science (and I didn’t say Darwin) that tells us that. Cosmotology, palentology, geology, and many other scientific branches tell us the same thing. If the Earth is 4.6 billion years old, what is that to God? What is 10 billion, 100 billion, 1000 billion years to Him? 4.6 then is just a drop in the ocean. And to think that God pays attention to US? It just shows his incredible love, and that he must have some wonderful plan for mankind.

Second-God is VERY involved with his creation. I’m not a ‘wind up the watch and let it go’ believer. There are lots of verses where God gives us details and tells us his passion about his interaction with the universe. He asked Job, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.” (Matt-read Job 38-it really shows how intimate God is with His creation. My favorite parts are that He likes to “walk the recesses of the deep” and that He cares enough to give the lions and the ravens food when they are hungry and cry out to Him.) God (through his son Jesus-see John 1:3 and Col. 1:16) guided and guides EVERY piece of matter and EVERY force in the universe. This second part is what I’m looking more closely into now.

Finally, the miracles of the Bible are true. The Red Sea really parted and the Hebrews walked on dry land. David really did kill Goliath with a sling shot. Elijah really went to heaven on a chariot of fire. Gabriel really came to Mary and told her she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit. I could go on and on . . . And, of course, Jesus healed the blind and lame, walked on water, fed the 5,000, and ultimately died for our sins and rose from the dead and is now at the right hand of God.

Hopefully, Christians can see that they should be very tolerant and loving of each other regarding our different viewpoints on the age of the Earth, God’s role in evolution, etc.

Wow-my comments turned out a lot longer than I thought I would write about at first . . . The blogging trap!

you guys are missing it . . . very badly. Remember it is the Word of God alone that is absolute Truth. Science is ever changing and cannot ever in any way trump the Bible.
The old earth propaganda is based entirely on assumptions and not facts, their dating methods are all over the place.
God with His very own finger wrote on tablets of stone (Exodus 20) and communicated to us that He created all things in “Six days.” Not billions of years of death and struggle.
The earth was created “Very good.” In effect perfect and then was corrupted by man’s choice to disobey God, thus sin passed to all people. The curse is death – everything is now decaying. There is no more anything being created.
If you use your old earth assumptions – you would have to believe there was not a world wide flood (as the bible says), there were many local floods close to 30000 years age. This view flys in the face of scripture.
But to think that there was death before Adam sinned is completely far fetched. Death came as a result of sin not before it. Through Adam all sin, but through Christ all are made alive.
– The bible has the answer
If you want to be a relative believer – I would say pitch your bible and just live life doing what ever feels good. In the end every knee will bow and every toungue confess . . . so be careful not to add anything to the scriptures that is not there!

Steven,
Welcome to the conversation. You are correct that God alone is the source of Absolute Truth. However, I disagree with your assessment of my position. The old earth view does not lead to relativism and does not undermine the Christian faith as a whole. In my opinion the arguments by the leaders of the young earth movement that age of the earth is central to our faith are fallacious. In fact, I think they have (unintentionally) inflicted significant damage to the Church. Your concern about death before the fall was actually the issue that I was hung up on for the longest, and for some time it caused me to cling to the young earth view. This issue is big enough that we plan to have an entire post on it in the future, so I will not respond in detail now.

Again, you are correct that science never gives us absolutes. On the contrary science makes progress by disproving things. But, it would be very difficult to argue that science doesn’t provide a useful way to explore truths of the physical realm. God has not only given us His Word but has also given us reason and powers of observation. We can expect to be able to use these tools to learn about God as well. Contrary to what you say, science provides a very coherent and consistent picture of an old Creation. This I really think is inescapable. If one wants to adopt a young earth view one is forced into some sort of extreme sort of belief of appearance of age.

Finally, since I don’t want to get into too many details in a reply to comments, I would encourage you to hang around for the discussion. If there are things you think we’ve gotten wrong then point us out on them (“As iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another”). We’ll be posting on this subject with a lot more detail over the next few months. I would like to encourage open discussion on the issue. As I mentioned, the current post is not really a detailed argument for any position, but rather a survey of positions and a disclosure of my own position. Future posts will include more specific arguments for our position and should provide better material for detailed discussion.

You close by saying,
“. . so be careful not to add anything to the scriptures that is not there!”

I heartily agree, though in my opinion it is the young earth creationists that are doing precisely that.

The young earth creationists are adding to scripture????
Just one verse for you to coment on – Exodus 20 –

9Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:

10But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:

11For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

So you are saying that God DID NOT make the earth in “SIX DAYS”?????????

Yes, I think that young earth creationists are interpreting the Genesis account in a way that was never intended. Traditionally and historically the type of interpretation of Genesis suggested by young earth creationists is really in the minority. No one takes everything in the Bible completely literally, nor would anyone want to. For example, would you recommend a literal reading of the parables? Is this even useful? How about a face-value read of Revelation? Thus it becomes a question of figuring out where to draw the line and how to interpret various parts of scripture. You might find the following discussion useful (it’s a quick read):

Regarding your specific example, there is deep symbolic and theological significance to the 6 creation days. When God recalls the creation account he is pointing to this significance. The work week and sabbath are a reflection of these important theological truths.

Matt, thanks for linking us to the Probe site and the Reasons.org site. I’m interested in well-developed Christian websites that explore these issues.

By the way, I’ve read a little bit of a website by a guy named Carl Drews. I found him by way of a Google search (isn’t that awful!) but I think he has some good points we should consider. See http://www.theistic-evolution.com/

Matt,
your on a very slippery slope. Charles Templeton, who began with Billy Graham left the faith for opening the same door you are.
And you still did not answer the text in any way shape or form.
If this was not “intended” to be understood like this then the people in the time of Moses would have understood God to mean that He had created the earth over Billions and Billions of years????????????? Please answer and don’t dodge!
According to Dr. Steven Boyd from the Masters college it is with 99.9% certainty the the days in Genesis are literal 24 hour days.
You have each day mentioned with a number (day 1,2,3,4,5,6) and you have each day defined with “morning and evening.”
If Genesis 1-10 are not a foundation for understanding the Earth, God’s plan for our lives, why Christ had to die, why marriage, why family, why death, – – – then I would say the bible is as true as Al Gore’s inconvinent truth.

1) I’m pretty sure the real question here, shared by everyone, is HOW our God created the universe. As i read this thread of comments and replies, i cannot but note a tension of adversity. Let’s not forget that we all still believe that Jesus died for our sins, whether or not he created the earth in a literal six days. Knowing them personally, i have serious doubts that Matt’s or James’ faith could be significantly shaken by this question, and i would flat out deny that they would write something on the level of a documentary.

2) I’m am absolutely sure that, whatever that truth may be, God’s truth (as reflected by scripture alone) far transcends Moses’ understanding of it. I accept gladly that my understanding of a truth is NOT requisite of its being a truth. Such an acceptance, it seems, is central to the idea of faith. If scripture is God-breathed (and it is) then i say it is perfectly acceptable for the human who merely recorded it to not have a full understanding of what he has written. Furthermore, if God really did write the entire new testament himself on stone tablets, then why are we even worried about Moses and the Old Testament Israelites understanding of God’s truth? Aren’t there several instances of the Israelites not understanding what God meant? Why is Moses’ understanding of a truth a requisite for that truth to be God’s Truth?

P.S. – I don’t care who Charles Templeton is or was. If he “left the faith” then i am far more concerned about whether he truly had it in the first place than “why” he left! What can stand against Truth? In my experience (especially my personal experience) one does not “leave” the faith in order that they might search for Truth, but they stop searching because they find something they like better than Truth, and then they quit pretending they’re a Christian.

I was actually a bit worried that I was being too confrontational. It’s easy for me to get into philosopher mode whenever a debate emerges. Believe it or not, I do understand where you’re coming from (Steven), since I held your view myself not all that long ago. I don’t want to be too abrasive, as I realize that for many people this issue is a central part of their faith, and the last thing I want to damage is someone’s faith in Christ. I also don’t want to go too long in the comments with this discussion, as I think a lot of this ground will be covered in future posts (you’ll also see the point of view of my brother James who is about to embark on a life as a Bible translator).

I will make a brief reply to your questions. How did the Hebrews interpret what God said? I don’t know, and I don’t think anyone does. I do know that during the first century A.D. the first known Jewish scholars to discuss the question (Philo and Josephus) thought that they could not be 24 hour days. However, I also don’t think it’s a very important question for interpreting a piece of scripture. There are certainly many cases where Jesus says things that are completely misunderstood by everyone, including the disciples. I just don’t see this as a relevant approach to interpretation. The real question is what did God mean.

I also have to disagree that interpreting Genesis in an old-earth way undermines any of the rest of the message of Genesis concerning God’s plan for us, why we need salvation, the plan of marriage, etc. What I would ask you to think about is why you think there is a connection there. Can you make a clear argument for this? If I am standing on a slippery slope, then I am doing so with a lot of good company: Augustine (said that the days certainly couldn’t be 24 hour periods long before there was known scientific evidence for the antiquity of earth), C.S. Lewis, Billy Graham, James Dobson, Francis Schaeffer, Chuck Colson, Lee Strobel, William Lane Craig…just to name a few. Basically what I’m saying is that I don’t think it’s as clear-cut as many have made it out to be. There are many respectable people of faith who have had no problem with an old creation or even evolution. I’ll close with a quote from Billy Graham.

“I don’t think that there’s any conflict at all between science today and the Scriptures. I think that we have misinterpreted the Scriptures many times and we’ve tried to make the Scriptures say things they weren’t meant to say, I think that we have made a mistake by thinking the Bible is a scientific book. The Bible is not a book of science. The Bible is a book of
Redemption, and of course I accept the Creation story. I believe that God did create the universe. I believe that God created man, and whether it came by an evolutionary process and at a certain point He took this person or being and made him a living soul or not, does not change the fact that God did create man. … whichever way God did it makes no difference as to what man is and man’s relationship to God.” Billy Graham, in D. Frost D. And F. Bauer, Billy Graham: Personal Thoughts of a Public Man, Chariot Victor Publishing: 1999, pp.72-74).

I think I am probably finished with the comment train for now, but we’d love to have you hang around for the continuing discussion. There will be a post on this subject roughly every week for the next 2-3 months. My brother and I alternate.

Cheno,
Truth is Truth – that’s the point. and the Bible is the only God inspired book that contains ABSOLUTE TRUTH. If we attempt to reinterpret what is says them there lies the problem.
I know the path that Matt is going and it is a path of making scripture equal with other “relative truths.” One Cannot ever do this – the scriptures ALWAYS stand ALONE. God said that His word is to be exalted above all His name PS 138:2
God did not write the New Testament on stone, though we do have close to 5000 manuscripts of its proof. God wrote down His Ten Commandments to us on stone, YES – with His finger. Read Exodus 20 – He says CLEARLY that in “SIX days” He created all that we see.
Once again the word of God stands alone.

Matt,
I will also make this my last post on your blog, sorry for the harrasment if it was felt like that. I guess you are right we can believe what we want to believe about what ever issue we would like. One major thing I have learned is – examine the fruits of anyone’s beliefs – you will see everything from their stance on the scriptures.
The list of christians that hold to Billions of years that you mentioned – have not a science background just for your information. Here is a list of some people who would say that the science of Geology, Biology, Astronomy Etc. points clearly to a Young Earth. The fact that there is found C14 in diamonds is a killer for those who hold to Billions of years of struggle and death before Adam. The fact that the helium rate decay in minerals tested from all over the world point to an age of 6000 to 8000 years is incredible. Billy Graham has said a lot of compromising things in his life time, and as your point says God has used him.
I also wanted to say to you – do not be a regurgitator. Christianity is FULL of those, believe what you believe because God has communicated it to you – the world has an agenda and is our enemy. I guarantee that the bible IS NOT what lead you to believe in a billions and billions of year old earth that went through struggle and death until God aparently was fed up and wanted to create Adam. You heard this from other people- But IT WAS NOT the BIBLE. If Hugh Ross has influenced you – I would check him out so you can know what type of man he is especially what he says – it will shock you.
Well, Matt you have been very cordial in your replies. Keep searching the scriptures for truth. Don’t settle for this low bar christianity. Be a MAN and teach other men to love their wives and Lead their families. At the rate we are going christianity is dying in America. It currently takes two whole christian families to get one christian into the next. We are losing 80% of our youth by the end of their first year in college (this has to do with Genesis). God bless brother.
GENESIS 1-11 is the FOUNDATION of the Christian faith.
Marriage – Jesus answered with Genesis 1 and 2
Work – Genesis 2:5
Clothing- Genesis 3:21
Gospel- Genesis 3:15
Death- 1 Cor. 15:21-22 (Genesis)
1 Cor. 15:45 – Why Jesus is called the Last Adam

Young Earth leaders –
John MacAurther, John Piper, Doug Phillips, Ken Ham, Paul Nelson (ID), D. James Kennedy, David Jerimiah, Tim Lahaye, Al Mohler (President of the SBC), Voddie Baucham, Paul Washer, Brannon Howse, Ron Carlson, -These guys are some really good guys and show some good character. You forgot to mention Norman Geisler, he has done some amazing work and is avery good logic debater but his character is vial, he is a mean spirited man. Dobson has done a lot of good, but will admit he knows nothing about science dealing with a young or old earth.

Not sure about the reliability of the rest of the list, but Ray Bohlin (who I know personally) is not a young earth creationist. From my personal conversations with him he remains agnostic on the issue and tends to think that the science points toward an old earth. As for the rest, it is not impossible to be a PhD scientist and to be a young earth creationist, but I suspect these people believe in spite of their science background not because of it.

Sorry about that Matt, I guess you may be right. According to AIG Answers in Genesis – they have Dr. Bohlin on a list as a Young Earth believer. I just discovered that he is part of the ID group and actually is on the fence post when it comes to the age of the earth. Maybe you can ask him where he stands currently . . .
Science does not Trump Scripture!

I keep saying I’m going to stop, but at least this is a question unlikely to be content for a future post. Piper is someone I have a fair bit of respect for, and I was surprised to hear you say he was a “leader” of the young earth movement. I actually can’t find any evidence online that he holds this belief (scouring his website and doing extensive googeling). I did find the portion of his church’s statement of faith on creation, which is here:

I actually see nothing in this statement that I would disagree with. Nowhere in this, or in the sermon I found of his on creation, does he mention a young earth. I would certainly think that if he thought the age of the earth was so important to faith that he would mention it here. I’m curious as to where you got the information about his beliefs.